by Mark Clodi
Gina could not just sit by and do nothing, using her chair as a weapon she ran over the old woman's legs. She kept her balance and spun her chair around, expecting to see the woman writhing in pain on the ground. Gina didn't weigh that much, but hadn't expected the old woman to ignore her completely. The jogger pulled his legs up, then bucked his entire body upwards, gaining enough of a respite to twist sideways under the front bumper of the van. The old woman scrabbled after him and reached for him with broken, bloodied fingers, her mouth wide open in anticipation for the next bite.
Gina backed up her chair to the curb then rammed the old lady in the ribs, tossing her sideways into the next lane of traffic, where a man in a business suit was talking on his cell phone. The suit was watching the whole drama unfold from the comfort of his sedan when he saw Gina's look of desperation. He hastily got out of his car and came around the front to help.
Still on his cell phone the man yelled at the old woman, "Stop it! I'm calling the police. Stop it now!"
The woman let out a mewing sound, like a kitten slowly being squeezed to death and then leaped up onto the suit. He thrust his hand out and tried to fend her off, but through bad luck or skill on the woman's part she came up under his outstretched hand and the top of her head knocked into the bottom of his jaw. The suit let out a wordless scream as his jaw dislocated. His cell phone dropped from his hand as he tried to prevent the old lady from biting him. The old woman forced the man back over the hood of his car, bending his body over it backward until he was all but lying down.
"Help me!" the jogger cried out softly, reaching a bloody hand out to Gina. She clutched it and he pulled himself out from under the vehicle, tipping her over on one wheel as he did so.
Nadine rushed over and slammed the wheel chair down, preventing Gina from spilling over as the man got to his feet.
"Oh, God! It hurts." The jogger said.
"Guh off uf meh!" the suit grunted, trying to push the old woman away. The woman persisted and lowered her head into the man's neck, a spray of blood spurted onto the hood and windshield of the man's luxury sedan. The car's wiper blades turned on automatically and attempted to clear the liquid off, smearing it into a fine red lacquer over the glass.
"Girls, we gotta get out of here." Leo said, pointing down the street. Gina followed his hand and saw a line of people working their way through the stalled cars, people who didn't look normal. They were stopping along the way breaking into vehicles and pulling the hapless passengers out and...devouring them.
"Can we get into your truck?" Gina asked, "You could load me in back."
Leo shook his head, "Full of furniture, I couldn't stuff an egg in there the way it is right now. Besides I can't drive through all these cars."
Gina looked in all directions and traffic was stalled as far as she could see. The homeless woman stood up from the suit she had been working on. Slowly the woman turned towards them.
"Run!" Leo yelled, shoving Gina's chair away from the car as he turned to face the homeless woman.
With Nadine's help Gina popped her chair over the curb and the two set off at a brisk pace away from the scene of the accident. Nadine was sobbing as they went. The jogger stumbled along behind them, holding his stomach and wheezing.
Nadine made it to the corner first and looked both ways, trying to figure out if they should head for home or towards their original destination, the mall.
"Na-uh, no way. Head home. I'm not getting stuck in a mall during the zombie apocalypse, I've seen how that ends too many times!" Gina said, wheeling back toward where they lived.
"But, Gina, it's too far to get home! We'll never make it." Nadine said.
"We'll make it." Gina called over her shoulder as she wheeled through the stalled cars to get across the street. Traffic was snarled up, going from normal to grid lock in the space of a few minutes. However the drivers still had room to back up so that Gina could wheel around them.
"What's going on?" asked a middle aged man, stepping out of his car, "Some sort of accident?"
"Zombies!" yelled Gina. Nadine pointed past the moving van and at the mob heading their way as she ran by.
Once on the sidewalk again the way was clear and Gina pushed with everything she had to make the next block. The traffic here was just as backed up and the undead coming towards her looked like a tsunami. Way behind them the jogger had fallen to his knees and was rocking back and forth, clutching his bloody belly.
Nadine pulled abreast of Gina and whimpered, "Oh my God!"
Gripping her friend's hand Gina pointed to a strip mall, "There! We gotta get over there!"
They threaded their way between the honking cars until they were on the opposite sidewalk and Gina wheeled towards the "Indian Grocery Store" at the closest end. A dark skinned man with gray peppered hair was busy locking the doors as they approached.
"Let us in!" Nadine screamed, pounding on the door as the man pulled an internal security door down in front of them.
"No. Go away!" came the heavily accented reply.
The two continued along to the next store, a "U-Post-It" for handling mail. The owner was busy locking the door from the outside when they caught up to him. Gina took a glance back at the intersection behind them and was surprised to see a group of the dead had already reached the parking lot and was heading their way.
"We gotta go in! Let us in!" Nadine screamed at the man locking the door.
"No way lady I gotta get home to my family!"
Nadine grabbed the keys out of his hand, the key to the store was still in the lock and broke off as she pulled the key chain away. The man punched Nadine in the face and struggled for the keys.
"Give me those you bitch!" He punched her twice more so quickly Gina didn't have time to respond to the violence. Keys in hand he triumphantly ran across the parking lot to his car.
"Nadine! Nadine are you okay?"
Her friend looked up at her, there was blood pouring out of her nose and both of her eyes were turning black and blue from the bruising.
"Get up Nadine! We gotta keep going!"
"I ca-can't!" sobbed her friend. "He broke my face! I felt my bones break! Why'd didn't h-he let us in?"
"C'mon!" yelled Gina, struggling to get her friend with one hand and wheel away with the other.
The "U-Post-It" store owner backed out of his parking space into another vehicle that had pulled up beside him. Both drivers stayed in their vehicles. The clerk put his car in gear and drove forward over the curb in front of him onto the sidewalk. He sideswiped the vehicle stuck in traffic on the street and drove away on the sidewalk.
"Asshole." Gina said as she watched him escape. The vehicle the clerk had hit wasn't going anywhere, whatever damage he had done prevented it from doing more than edging forward at a snail's pace.
The zombies surrounded the car and but three of the mob broke off and headed their direction.
"Nadine." Whispered Gina, "Nadine, we gotta go. Now." Slowly Gina let her friend's fingers slip through hers.
Nadine lay on the ground sobbing and curling into a fetal position as Gina's fingers left hers. Gina backed away from her friend slowly, the zombies oriented on Nadine, the easier target.
"No." Whispered Gina. The zombies fell onto her friend in a frenzy, eliciting a scream that Gina wouldn't have thought possible from a human being.
"No." she whispered again, backing her chair further away. Nadine was still screaming as the zombie tore into her, splattering blood on the "U-Post-It" door. Far too slowly Nadine's screams died. By then Gina was halfway down the strip mall, still backing up.
More zombies poured into the parking lot, looking for food. A tall man, missing his left arm at the elbow focused on her and started trudging slowly towards her. Gina looked at the building next to her, it was a Christian Book store. Inside a doughy looking man and his pasty skinned assistant looked out at her in horror.
"Let me in!" Gina screamed at them. The woman put her face into her hands and man wrapped his arms
around her. "Let me in! Don't just stand there! Open the door!"
Neither of them moved to unlock the door for her. Frustrated, Gina spun her chair and wheeled towards the end of the building. The leading elements of the zombie tide reached the corner before she did, for a moment Gina was among them, all heading the same direction. This brief moment ended when the zombies seemed to realize that she was there. First the walking nurse on her right stopped and fumbled her mauled hands at Gina's head, then the black-jeans wearing Goth, still sporting his multiple piercings and body scarring turned her way. The two of them, stopped Gina's chair and started pawing at her.
Pulling back from the nurse put Gina into the Goth's reach, in desperation she bucked herself forward onto the ground, putting herself temporarily more than arm's length away. Pulling herself forward Gina aimed for the grassy ditch ahead of her. Gina felt a sharp tug on her leg as something grabbed her. She hadn't felt too much pain in either leg since she had been bucked from a horse when she was four, but she recognized what was happening; someone was biting her. She ignored the sensation and pulled herself towards the grassy strip, when she reached the strip of curb she was able to get a good grip on the concrete and pull herself, and the nurse, up and onto the grass.
The Goth had followed as well and chose this moment to bend down and pin Gina to the ground. Even with the strength in her arms Gina could not pull herself away, there simply was nothing to grip in the turf. Her hands dug two muddy furrows through the grass as she continued to try and get away. Slowly she stopped moving and rested her head on one arm, looking back at the two zombies feasting on her thighs. Blood spurted in an arc, hitting the Goth as the nurse tore into Gina's inner thigh. The Goth licked the blood off of his lips before his head went below her line of sight again.
'I can't even feel them killing me. I can't even...' Slowly Gina's vision dimmed and the world faded.
The Goth and nurse both stopped feeding on Gina's dead flesh a few minutes after she died. With deliberate movements Gina pushed herself up onto her stomach, no longer handicapped by her childhood injury. Rising to her feet Gina looked about her and took the first steps forward into her new unlife. If her decomposing brain could form a coherent thought it might have been that sometimes you do get what you wish for.
Table of Contents
One in Billions
Three in Billions
Five in Billions
Seven in Billions
Nine in Billions
Eleven in Billions
Thirteen in Billions
